In this episode an exclusive interview with Arlene Dickinson, legendary entrepreneur, founding Dragon on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, veteran investor and CEO of District Ventures Capital based in Calgary. After working together several years during my days at The Shopping Channel, Arlene and I catch up and chat about her latest series of investments at District Ventures focussing on start-ups in the food category taking them onto retailer’s shelves with an innovative listing deal with with CircleK convenience stores. Next I sit down with Michele Sexsmith, SVP and Practice Leader, Retail, Real Estate and Entertainment Sectors from Environics Analytics talking about the marketing mix for retailers and how to leverage digital to amplify, personalize and measure customers and customer segments in and around your retail stores and more.
Welcome to the Voice of Retail for the week of June 18th, 2019 I’m your host Michael LeBlanc and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
In this episode an exclusive interview with Arlene Dickinson, legendary entrepreneur, founding Dragon on CBC’s Dragon’s Den, veteran investor and CEO of District Ventures Capital ( https://www.districtventurescapital.com/) based in Calgary. After working together several years during my days at The Shopping Channel, Arlene and I catch up and chat about her latest series of investments at District Ventures focussing on start-ups in the food category taking them onto retailer’s shelves with an innovative listing deal with with CircleK convenience stores.
Next I sit down with Michele Sexsmith, SVP and Practice Leader, Retail, Real Estate and Entertainment Sectors from Environics Analytics talking about the marketing mix for retailers and how to leverage digital to amplify, personalize and measure customers and customer segments in and around your retail stores and more.
Last but not least I’ll cover off Retail This Week including the sweet smell of success for Saje, RYU founder’s love of tribes, Giant Tiger breaks new ground, Dollarama back on growth path, Ikea turns a Paris subway into a glorious showroom, Amazon’s private label products best sellers in 22 categories, Walmart deals with Ellen, hot rental trends and the customer that use them, shades of grey - Vancouver cannabis edition, Choom cannabis opens with great fan-fare in Niagara Falls, Canna Cabana in Toronto, Shoppers offers same-day delivery in Ontario, and edibles laws finalized and ready for on-shelf around December.
But first, let’s listen in to my interview with Arlene Dickinson
Thanks to Arlene and Michele for being my special guests for this episode. Now let’s hit the highlights from Retail This Week eNewsletter, biggest retail weekly in Canada and you can subscribe on www.retailcouncil.org for free.
That’s a wrap on this edition of The Voice of Retail, if you liked this podcast you can subscribe on iTunes or your
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I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and Company Inc. and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co or of course on LinkedIn